When was the last time you visited the Lahore Museum? A very dear friend - a top art and culture person of the city - responded: “How boring, I would not want to go to sleep. His answer stunned me.

It reminded me of a comment by a distinguished British expert of the V&A Museum of London: “People not visiting museums are brain dead and their nation is a lost cause”. A rather harsh comment from a highly respected scholar. When I told him, I wanted to write about the Lahore Museum he went silent. “Gosh, they have over 60,000 rare and ancient pieces as against 55,000 of the British Museum, yet people barely visit the place. In terms of museology it is a global tragedy”. “Have you been to Lahore?” Yes, my report must be decaying on some shelf.

But before we pass judgement and look at Lahore’s amazing collection, let us first look at museum attendances the world over. The world’s most visited museum is the Louvre in Paris, France. The world ‘louvre’ means a ‘castle’ in old French. It has over 9.3 million visitors a year, or over 18,000 a day, or 38 visitors a minute. Its non-art collection is less than the Lahore Museum. Granted Paris has foreign visitors who make up 70 per cent of all visitors, with locals making up the remaining 2.79 million, and mind you the population of Paris is 2.4 million. So every Parisian goes to the Louvre at least twice a year.

Lahore has a population of 12.2 million plus – the 8th largest in the world - and very few foreign visitors, all of whom have the Lahore Museum on their ‘Must Visit’ list. The official total annual number of visitors to the Lahore Museum was 250,000 at its heights. Officials claim “these days the numbers are down”. They respond in a guarded manner when questioned. That makes it about 700 a day, of which over 80pc are school children from outlying schools on a day trip.

The National Museum of Chinain Beijing has over 7.6 million visitors a year. In 1949 when Mao Zedong won power, he declared the Freedom Proclamation at this museum. “This place represents our history”, he said. Then comes the British Museum which has 6.7 million visitors a year, with tourists making up the majority. Even the Vatican Museum has 6.2 million visitors a year, and the Topkapi Museum of Istanbul 2.2 million a year.

In the ‘Harem’ section of Topkapi - which was the Ottoman rulers’ bedrooms - over one million visitors move about in wonder. Makes you think! It brought me back to my friend’s comment about the Lahore Museum being a boring place. What would you expect of a collection where the majority of the pieces are hidden away in the storage sections in the basement, while those on display have scant descriptions. Probably they wish visitors to keep guessing. But then on their own they are amazing masterpieces.

Take the ‘Starving Siddhartha’ or starving Buddha statue. It is considered among the seven greatest statues of the world. How many readers of this column have actually seen that statue? Some time ago, allegedly as officials claim, a ruling person wanted the piece for himself. In the effort it was slightly damaged. That exquisite statue stands alone without any detailed story to entice the onlooker.

In my university days every day without fail, in the company of my very best friend, we stood in front of it in wonderment. Two tickets then cost four annas. These days it is Rs50 each for adults, while foreigners pay Rs1,000 each. If you want to take a photograph that costs Rs10,000. An amazing strategy to put off visitors. All over the world museum entrance is free, as it is part of the educating process.

Take another statue that was to Lahore Museum what the Mona Lisa is to the Louvre. That statuette was ‘The Dancing Girl’, found in Mohenjo Daro in 1930-31. In 1960 a friendly Pakistan government loaned it to the National Arts Council in Delhi. That was never returned. Efforts to retrieve it have petered out, which is not surprising that the Lahore Museum is headed by a Grade-20 official and its controlling members are all government officers except for three well-known Lahore cultural persons and a walled city influential.

The science of museology has nothing to do with the Lahore Museum, nor over the years has there been much interest in this science. All over the world museums are run by these museology experts. In Pakistan such are the affairs of such institutions where bureaucrats consider such a ‘posting’ as being ‘sidelined’. Gone are the days when personalities like Lockwood Kipling and Dr S.N. Gupta were curators, people who founded the museum in 1865 in today’s Tollinton Market, and after Bhai Ram Singh designed and built the present Lahore Museum, in which it shifted in 1894.

An often-ignored scholar is Dr Gupta, who using the exhibits and archaeological findings proved beyond doubt that the Veda epics all had Iranian influence with events taking place in what is today’s Pakistan. Naturally, the Hindu pandits declared him ‘crazy’. In Pakistan most historians believe the ‘pandit’ version. Such is the power of belief concerning science. For this reason alone it is critical that our children and even elders should visit the Lahore Museum more often to have the correct picture of our history. It is simply all there to see.

Now what exactly makes this museum an internationally recognised institution? Its pre-history archaeological collection of Lahore’s Buddhist period is among the finest. We can see beautiful exhibits of the influence of Indo-Greek art and sculptures on our way of life even today. Then its collection of the Gandhara period is world renowned and often quoted in research journals. It also has an impressive collection of Mughal period exhibits, as well as Sikh and British period collections. Naturally, there is a growing section of Islamic books and, also of the Pakistan period.

But what is even more impressive than all this is its ancient manuscripts library on the first floor, where scholars from all over the world come to research. If you ever had the chance to study and work in foreign universities it comes as a surprise how highly Lahore Museum is rated among scholars.

All this makes sense, and also brings into sharp focus the inability of our dear country and its crippled educational system to make young minds curious enough to visit this great place again and again. That our elders are not interested enough to bring their charges to the Lahore Museum, speaks volumes of the assertion that the ‘system is decaying’. I have time and again mentioned, to no effect, the tragedy of the Lahore Archives, which merrily rots away in the Secretariat’s old French Horse Stables.

On a positive note just what needs to be done to promote our finest assets among our curious young? For starters, like all over the world, museum entrance fees should be abolished. In my view this is criminal. Secondly, a respectable committee of management should be appointed devoid of bored and disinterested ‘sidelined’ bureaucrats. Thirdly, ample funds for the museum’s maintenance and management should be allocated in the annual federal and Punjab budgets.

Lastly, in the spirit of thinking for a big future, the colonial-era revenue department offices behind the NCA should be shifted elsewhere and in its place a Bhai Ram Singh designed complex of the ‘Lahore Museum-NCA-New Museum’ be built for a major expansion. After all the ‘hidden treasures’ in the basement stores are more than enough to fill two such new spaces. We have everything to be the best of the best. Sadly, what is halting creativity are the ‘scared’ decision makers who think history began just 900 years ago.

Published in Dawn, September 20th, 2020